Unity talks between the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions have reportedly stalled amid Fatah demands – and Hamas refusals – that new elections be held to provide Palestinian lawmakers with a mandate to rule over some of the areas that they claim for a future Palestinian state. Amin Maqboul, the secretary-general of...

A Sunday speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is fueling concerns that the Iran-backed terror group intends to use Lebanon’s off-shore energy resources to provoke a conflict with Israel, with the terror group chief reportedly insisting at least three times that Israel is engaged in a plot to plunder Lebanese oil. Lebanese media noted that Nasrallah began...

The first day of coverage regarding comprehensive talks between Iran and the P5+1 global powers revolved around pessimism from all sides regarding the prospect that talks would succeed, amid declarations by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that negotiations would “not lead anywhere” and statements by U.S. officials that the initial six-month negotiation period...

The Al Qaeda-linked jihadist group Ansar Jerusalem has claimed responsibility for the Sunday bombing of a tourist bus in the Sinai Peninsula. In a statement released to jihadist forums today, the Sinai-based jihadist group Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt al Maqdis) claimed responsibility for the bombing of a tourist bus in Taba yesterday....

The Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday morning conveyed statements from White House officials brushing off concerns regarding a January spike in Iran’s oil exports, which was widely read against the backdrop of a stabilization in Iran’s economy, prompting Foreign Policy to say that it had “raised concerns” over the veracity of White House statements...

The State Department last week put itself on the defensive over the Obama administration’s policy toward Egypt’s army-backed government – which has ranged from a controversial aid freeze last October to a pointed diplomatic snub as recently as two weeks ago – with State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf being pressed for the second day in a row to...

The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake and Josh Rogin reported last week that the Obama administration’s diplomacy toward Iran was risking a cascade of new nuclear proliferators across the Middle East, with both Western and Israeli intelligence agencies telling the outlet that Saudi Arabia is developing uranium enrichment infrastructure that has long been ‘considered...

CNN last week conveyed reports from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons assessing that the Bashar al-Assad regime has shipped out just 11% of its chemical weapons (CW) arsenal. Syria has shipped out 11% of its chemical weapons stockpile — falling far short of the February 5 deadline to have...

The long tenure of Richard Falk at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHRC) – where for years he served as the body’s special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights – did not exactly cover that already controversial organization with glory. In just a few months last year, he embroiled...

Foreign Policy on Thursday assessed that a spike in Iranian oil exports was “raising concerns” that the sanctions relief provided to Iran under the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA) – which the Obama administration declared would not rise much above $7 billion, and which critics insisted vastly undercounted relief due to a range of rudimentary and easily identifiable errors...